Back to the Grind

Back to School, back to school, 

to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool.

I got my lunch packed up, 

my boots tied tight, 

I hope I don't get in a fight.

     ~Billy Madison

Last year when we decided to home school, I was excited but I felt lost the entire year.  I have since found out that your first year is like that; you spend a lot of time breaking public school habits and learning what works best for your child for each subject area.  I feel much better about this second year of home school, and even though we quit second grade stuff in May, we've been doing some form of learning almost every day.  

One of the things that has been the most fun is from something I found on Facebook in the Homeschool Swapping Adventures group.  They have several swaps that you can participate in.  We are in our third month of swapping postcards with other home school families from around the world.  I bought a couple of inexpensive maps and mounted them on foam board.  We use pushpins to mark off the states/countries where we've received post cards and we decorate the edge of the board with the actual postcards.  We have about ten states so far, along with Canada, England, Scotland, and Panama.  

We are also in our third month of swapping geography boxes.  We received our first box last week, all the way from Alaska.  It was filled with brochures, coloring pages, trinkets, and snacks.  Darcy has discovered that she adores salmon jerky.  I can honestly say I never would have thought that.  We have a box coming from Tennessee soon, and for August we will be swapping with a family in Nevada. 

Alaska goodies from a home school peer

The third swap we are doing is called a Flat Traveler.  It is very similar to Flat Stanley.  We made a Flat Darcy (complete with her lovie, Blue Bunny) and she winged her way to Washington State to stay with a young boy named Cathen; Flat Cathen traveled to us to spend time here in Texas. He goes everywhere we go and we take his photo as if he's a part of the family.  We will create a smash book of all the photos and mail it to him next week.  For August, Flat Darcy is going to Kansas.  [A special Flat Darcy is at GTMO right now with my friend Debbie Nabors.  I am lining up other friends of mine to take Flat Darcy with them so she can see more of the world.]

Flat Darcy

Darcy getting a henna tattoo while
Flat Cathen looks on.

We started reading, math, and science last week and did our first science experiment.  Darcy built two gliders (one with long thin wings and one with short fat wings) and conducted an experiment to see which would fly the greatest distance on average.  We had the entire family involved:  she would fly the plane, David would measure the distances, and I would record them.  Our results were quite interesting.  I was very glad that I had purchased the lab kit because we have everything we need on hand for every experiment, and it is already sorted and labeled.  I was fortunate to get it on sale back in May.  

What is this face she is making?

Today we started back to full time home school.  We covered everything except spelling, and that was only because I discovered I didn't have the necessary workbook.  I also had to reprint some pages for Art as some time between yesterday and today I seem to have misplaced my curriculum binder.  While she wasn't thrilled to be starting now, I reminded her that on the first day of school for her public school friends, they will all have photos of them waiting for the bus; she will be waiting to feed the dolphins at Sea World.  That cheered her up.  

For the most part, our 2.5 hours of study went well with only one meltdown (hers, not mine; my meltdowns will come later).  The goal right now is to do what I've found is called Sabbath Schooling.  We will study for six weeks, then take a week off, plus the usual holidays.  By starting now, we will get our first week off the week of Labor Day. 

Hard at work on Day 1

Our curriculum this year is eclectic.  Last year we used all LifePac and hated it; she is not a workbook kind of learner.  I'm hoping a wider variety will help ease boredom for both of us.  We will study from all of the following books as well as have weekly piano lessons, gymnastics, and classes through the local Friday School co-op. 

Art:  World's Greatest Artists, Volume 1

Bible:  Jesus Calling for Kids and BJU's Following Christ, plus AWANA when it starts back up

History:  Story of the World, Volume 1

Math:  Horizons 3 and Life of Fred (occasionally we will do Grocery Cart Math)

Science:  Zoology I - Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

English/Language Arts:

     Grammar:  Daily Grams 3

     Spelling:  Spelling 3

     Reading:  Drawn into the Heart of Reading

     Handwriting:  A Reason for Handwriting, Level 

     Writing:  Daily 6-Trait Writing

My Kid Is Cute, I'll Admit It

Recently, we were outside so that Darcy could practice her gymnastics.  Mosquitoes are insane right now, and she saw one land on my leg.  She smacked it, wiped its remains on a nearby tree, and then said, "Rest in peace, little dude."  Where does she come up with these things?!?  

I love her the most!

Typical Tuesdays

Tuesdays around our house are insanely busy, and yesterday was no exception. 

Seeing a cute face like this
get gobbled by a shark really sucks.

I am fortunate enough to have someone come in every two weeks and clean the house (hooray for Haddix House Cleaning!) so on those Tuesdays we leave the house that morning and are gone until dinner.  We started off by going to see the movie 'Oceans' at Century 12.  It was part of their summer movie club.  Since we had purchased tickets in advance, the tickets were a whopping $1.00 for both of us.  Score!  We were almost late because, even though we've been going to see these Tuesday morning movies every Tuesday since the start of summer, I forgot what time it started.  We walked in right as the opening credits started.  [Note:  I think there is one more movie next Tuesday, and tickets at the box office are only $1.00.  It's always fun and we really enjoy going.]

Anyway, the movie was really good except for the part where the shark ate the oh-so-cute sea lions and then again when the sea gulls carried off the newly-hatched baby turtles.  I know that's part of the whole circle of life thing, but really, they didn't have to show that.  It upset a lot of the kids there.  In fact, Darcy came out of the movie contemplating becoming a vegetarian.  I told her she could if she wanted to.  After all, when I saw the movie ' Babe' I didn't eat meat for a year.  The allure of things like steak and bacon are too strong, though.  Plus, Darcy only tolerates vegetables. 

We ran into several other home school families there and we kidnapped one of Darcy's friends to go run errands with us for the afternoon (kidnapped with permission).  Darcy has this weird love of the soft pretzels at Sam's Club, so that's where we went for lunch.  While we were there, I swear we saw my brother's doppelganger.  I sneaked a photo of him and sent it to the hubs; he agreed.  It was like this guy was my brother's twin, but with hair.  Freaky!

I know it needs a little work,
but I love the way the door
turned out!

From there we went to the lake to check on some feral kittens that Darcy found a couple of weeks ago; thankfully, they were nowhere to be found.  We went to one of my favorite stores, Target, and grabbed a birthday present for a friend, then we went on the search for contact paper in either white board or chalk board form.  I recently moved all of Darcy's home school materials to a hall closet, and I decided that I wanted to make the door into a bulletin board of sorts.  I finally found some white board contact paper at Mardel, and I also found a poster-size piece of notebook paper that is laminated.  I grabbed a cute bulletin board border to complete my purchase. 

We dashed to Redbud Park so the girls could play for a bit before landing at the Abilene Public Library for a demonstration by a local kennel club on dog obedience.  They had three dogs there and they demonstrated the dogs following commands.  These dogs were super smart.  All I could think of was my dogs and how there's no way any of them could successfully complete an obedience class.  Missy forgets how the stairs work; Sophie is a stubborn cuss; Maynard is too busy being a horndog; and Dixie, well, Dixie could probably pass the class.  She's the only one, though.  Our dogs are dumber than rocks.  They are sweet, but D-U-M-B, dumb!

We exchanged kiddos at the library, sending Kid 1 home with her mom and bringing home two different ones.  I was glad that Kid 1 went with us on our errands because she gave Darcy some great company.  Most of the time, friends are a lot more fun than boring mom.  I took the new troop of girls to Sonic (hooray for happy hour!) and we surprised David with a soda.  When we got home, after walking into a sparkling clean house, the three girls hatched a plan.  They worked on making a movie for nearly two hours.  They have costumes and everything.  Right now all they have are a lot of bloopers, but they are working on it again this afternoon.  Having kiddos in the neighborhood is a great motivator for Darcy to get her school work done. 

Swallowtail from our
habitat

Yes, we are already working on school for the 2013-2014 year.  I went in and modified our schedule so that we are doing what I've heard referred to as "Sabbath Schooling."  You do six weeks on, and one week off.  In order to do that and get everything done by June, we need to start a few things now.  Another reason we are starting now is that her science book is a zoology study of flying creatures.  This includes bugs, which are plentiful right now.  She has a butterfly habitat (in fact, one swallowtail hatched yesterday morning before we left for the movies) so we are starting with Chapter 1 and then skipping straight to Chapter 14, which is the one on butterflies.  We'll then go back to Chapter 9 and do the one on bugs; no sense doing those chapters in the middle of winter when there's nothing around.  That will be the perfect time to study birds since they are more than plentiful here (egads, it's like a Hitchcock movie around here because we live so close to the mall - grackles everywhere).   So, Chapter 1, 14, 9-13, 2-8.  I'm sure that is exactly what the author had in mind. 

Today is hang out at home and take it easy, although now I'm working on lesson plans for reading for the year.  It's always something. 

How I Earned a Paid Disneyland Vacation

It's true!  I got myself a paid vacation - two weeks, to be exact.  I still got full pay and I didn't lose any of my benefits.  Granted, I do have a black mark against me on that dreaded permanent record, but in the massive scheme of things, it's not even a blip on the radar.  It was April 2004 and you can tell from the photos just how upset I was about the entire incident. 


If you have ever lived or worked in a small town, you will know what I mean when I say that small town politics are big business.  That circle gets even smaller if you are in education in a small town.  Several years ago there were issues with the school board wanting to get rid of an excellent athletic director because of the usual - have a bad season and off you go.  I decided to take a stand on my blog and I went on to question why we had a member of the school board who sent his own kids to private school or another who chose to go the route of home school.  Seriously, these were the people on the school board (I think some of them may still be there, and to them I offer a major raspberry); they had no investment in the school system yet they were making decisions that affected the entire community.  Of course, the people that elected them to the school board were just as moronic, but I digress.

It came to the attention of the school board and the superintendent what I was saying on my blog and they decided to make an example of me.  The principal called me into his office, where the superintendent was waiting for me.  They had me sign some papers stating that I was being suspended because I wasn't "teaching during class time" but reassured me that I would still get full pay and full benefits.  At first I was upset but then I realized what a joke it was.  Everyone thought it was a joke.  I mean, really, they got me for "not teaching" and suspended me for that?!?  One student dated a basketball coach and nothing happened there, but talk about the school board and watch out!  I know it was related to my blog because while I was gone the superintendent asked a co-worker if I had mentioned him in my blog lately.  Idiot. 

I had racked up a ton of frequent flier miles the year before, so I made some reservations and took off for a week in Disneyland.  It was fantastic.  I took behind the scenes tours that I had always wanted to take.  I was able to ride what I wanted, when I wanted.  Not only that, but when most of the cast members of Disneyland found out I was traveling solo, they gave me preferential treatment (one kind lady even told me to get out of line and sent me to the ride's exit, where she promptly put me on the ride).

When I got back I made sure to wear my Disneyland denim jacket to work and I decorated my desk with all the cute little Disney items I had purchased.   I think that whole suspension thing was the worst idea ever for the school board, but the best idea ever for me.  It's like the kid who skips school because he doesn't want to be there, so the school suspends him and he gets to stay home - exactly where he wanted to be in the first place!  What a crock. 

We got a new superintendent and new principal not too long after that.  I told the new principal that I had a habit of always speaking my mind, no matter what.  He said that at least he would always know where he stood with me (and he did - we butted heads a lot). 

So, I guess the moral of the story from my point of view is that if I like you and I believe in you, I will support you no matter what the cost.  I'm sure the CCISD files say otherwise, but I'd much rather be known as the person who will stand up for what I believe in, no matter what. 

Here I Go Again...

Once upon a time, I had a blog which I updated quite regularly.  I loved it, however my employers did not and after being suspended for two weeks, I decided to let the blog die away.  I don't have an employer now, and a friend recently told me I should start blogging again, so, here I am!  This one will be short and sweet since I need to figure out what the heck I'm doing. 

I must mention that I took that two-week suspension with full pay and full benefits so hard that I cashed in my frequent flier miles and spent a week at Disneyland.  Yeah, it was rough.  Too bad I can't get another suspension and go on another free vacation.  *snort*

Now I am a stay at home mom of one, a cook, laundry specialist, teacher, curriculum specialist, guidance counselor, social director, secretary, school nurse, bus driver, and janitor, plus all other duties of a mom and wife. 


Okay, folks, what would you like for me to discuss?  Hormonal tweens?  Our home zoo?  Home school?  Chronic Pain?  Books?  Movies?  Television?  Family matters?  You name it, I'll blog it!